Spiiderweb™

Rojak posts, mostly political.

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann

If so, I must be a writer.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

15,023!

Thanx to all of you. Fifteen thousand+ visits. Beats the hell out of the ol' water cooler crowd. And I definitely appreciate those of you who visit regularly. Some of you visit 2-3 times daily looking for my meager offerings.

From January 2006 (actually earlier) until now, that really is many visitors although not up to the "big dogs'" hits, but then I don't have to pay for my hosting which is a godsend.

Vagina - now suspend me

Mueller admits fault in FBI intrusions

Is this how it works now? And why didn't it work for Libby? I broke the law. Sorry about that and I won't do it again.

The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left open the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against FBI agents or lawyers who improperly used the USA Patriot Act in pursuit of suspected terrorists and spies.

The FBI's transgressions were spelled out in a damning 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. He found that agents sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit also concluded that the FBI for three years underreported to Congress how often it used national security letters to ask businesses to turn over customer data. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval.

NASA Dismisses Lovelorn Astronaut

File under: No shit.

In an official statement on Wednesday, NASA said U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak's position as a NASA astronaut has been terminated, effective March 8, by mutual agreement between the space agency and the U.S. Navy.

Nowak is charged with attempted kidnapping and burglary with assault after confronting Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman at Orlando International Airport last month.

Please buy for me

What is the world coming to?

This is completely bizarre, but what isn't these days?

For months it's been a well-kept secret. But now Warren Township Schools confirm a disturbing case of sex in the classroom. The illicit activity has parents concerned and a district at a loss for words.

Shop class gives students a chance to learn outside of the book. But at Warren Township's Raymond Park Middle School, two students engaged in illicit acts in view of goggled eyes.

13 Investigates was tipped off by a disturbed resident who writes:

"...during school hours in a classroom with an experienced teacher present, two sixth graders completed the act of intercourse...at least ten students were witnesses. No disciplinary actions were taken against the teacher... All teachers were told to keep quiet."

284!

Jesus H Christ on a road trip. Tell me again how well the SURGE™ is going, Bush, Cheney, anyone? Please leave Iraq.

A suicide attacker blew himself up in a cafe northeast of the capital Wednesday, killing 30 people as a wave of violence left 90 Iraqis dead throughout the country.

The bloodshed persisted as Iraqi security forces struggled to protect more than 1 million Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala for annual religious rituals that begin Friday. The pilgrims are facing a string of attacks along the way that have claimed at least 174 lives in two days — among 284 killed acrossIraq since Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia warns foreigners of possible attacks

Terrorist attacks are always imminent at this point in time. But it seems the immediate threats might be real.

Saudi authorities have warned foreign embassies that a group blamed for last month's killing of four French nationals could strike again, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

"The warning was despatched by the (Saudi) Foreign Ministry to all embassies in the kingdom," said Mansour al-Turki, the Interior Ministry spokesman for security affairs.

Diplomats said the warning was sent after the Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday it had arrested some suspects in the killing of the four French nationals.

"Saudi authorities officially notified us on Tuesday that the group could attack again and urged foreigners to avoid travelling outside cities," a Western diplomat said.

The four French nationals were killed on Feb. 26 during a trip into the desert. No one has claimed responsibility.

The warning also advised embassy personnel not to travel in the area where the killing occurred, the Western diplomat said.

Some French residents in Riyadh said they received text messages from their embassy informing them of the Saudi warning.

"We have reacted immediately by informing our nationals of the warning which urged foreigners in general to be cautious and to call police as soon as they notice that they are being monitored," French embassy spokesman Alain Guepratte said.

Considering most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis, this warning should carry some import.

30 States put new law officers on the street with little or no training

This should scare the shit out of you.

Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A novice officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death.

Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the United States: At least 30 states let some newly hired local law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.

These states allow a certain grace period — six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin — before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.

The risks, some say, are high.

If not the danger to the public, the potential lawsuits should scare the police agencies. These people have no training about what is legal for them to do and what isn't. I think this will be self-correcting.

Official: Israel is THE pariah state

I'm going to purloin this entire article for balance. You'll see why. In other words, this is a must read IMHO.

A recent GlobeScan survey conducted for the BBC World Service confirms what most people know but governments want to deny: Israel is an unpopular state whose role is seen as anything but benign in world opinion

By Dr. Sahib Mustaqim Bleher

A recent GlobeScan survey conducted for the BBC World Service confirms what most people know but governments want to deny: Israel is an unpopular state whose role is seen as anything but benign in world opinion. The poll rates countries as to whether there influence in the world is considered to be mainly positive or negative, and the results show Israel to be perceived the least positive and the most negative influence. Even Iran did slightly better in the perception of people around the world.

These results have to be viewed against the background of relentless negative propaganda against Iran whereas Israel is usually perceived in the dominant mass media as a beleagured democracy of victimised people fighting for survival in a despareate struggle against Arab and Islamic terrorism. So whilst many people in the world may have been hoodwinked into accepting the official line on Iran, they have not been fooled into believing the myth of Israel as the innocent home for persecuted Jews.

China, by the way, is seen as more positive than the USA, and the latter is perceived as more negative than Russia. It seems the people of the world do not share the American dream, but their clear vote against the role Israel is playing is most telling. Short of accusing the pollsters of anti-semitism in the design of their research methods, as the Israeli paper Haaretz does, Israel and its supporters have an evident image problem in spite of privileged access to the media. No doubt, in their typical arrogance they will respond by claiming that the world's inhabitants will need to be better educated.

This would make the Americans the best educated nation on earth: the Israeli national news service Arutz Sheva tells us that unlike other nations, the sympathies of Americans are still solidly with Israel. Who would have guessed!

-- Mathaba author Dr. Sahib Mustaqim Bleher is a German living in England, a Muslim and a pilot - in the oppressive neo-fascist climate of today, this means walking a tight rope. And it requires speaking out. He has done so through articles, pamphlets and books, many of which are available via his FlyingImam web site which you can visit at FlyingImam.com.

Bush ''saddened'' by verdict in CIA leak case

Forget about the hundreds of thousand dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forget about the thousands still homeless 18 months after Katrina hit NOLA. Bush is "saddened" because one fucking slime ball lobbyists has been convicted of lying to the FBI and perjured himself. Ya gotta love his sense of priorities.

U.S. President George W. Bush was "saddened" by the jury's verdict on Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was guilty in the leak case regarding the identity of Valerie Plame, a former covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the White House said.

"He said that he respected the jury's verdict, that he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family," White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said at a news briefing.

Its really difficult to tell who the bigger slime ball is. Oops, it isn't difficult at all. No one is a larger slime ball than Dim Son.

Iraq death toll rises amid backlash fears

File under: Courage under fire. My gawd, but these people are devoted.

Iraqi insurgents killed nine more Shiite pilgrims on Wednesday as the toll from the previous day's suicide attack rose to 117, amid fears that a backlash could undermine the US-led Baghdad security plan.

At least two suicide bombers detonated explosive vests on Tuesday in a crowd of Shiites marching through the central town of Hilla on foot towards the holy city of Karbala for Friday's Arbaeen religious festival.

Doctor Saad al-Shemari of Hilla hospital told AFP that, along with the 117 dead, there were another 173 wounded -- many of them critically -- and that the number of fatalities was expected to rise still further.

"After every kind of attack, we're concerned about restarting the cycle of sectarian violence," said US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver.

"So we hope that people remain calm and don't play into the terrorists' hands, by restarting the cycle, and let the Iraqi security forces do their job. We're concerned about every attack," he said.

The killings continued on Wednesday as -- undaunted -- thousands of pilgrims continued their march of devotion, carrying banners and copies of the Koran and marching hundreds of kilometres to Karbala's revered shrines.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd guess you're afraid to walk a deserted street at night in the US.

These pilgrims know they will most likely be shot at and still take their chances.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

This Can't Be Good

A "cancer of insurgency" in southern Afghanistan could drive the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels, the U.N. drug agency chief said Monday.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime predicted that last year's harvest record would be broken by an increase in 15 provinces, including Helmand — the world's largest poppy-growing region and the scene of a growing number of attacks by Taliban fighters who use opium to fund their insurgency.

A woman's work is never done

File under: Perspective.

Housework was a woman's job in the family ... but one evening, Jenny arrived home from work to find the children bathed, one load of laundry in the washer and another in the dryer. Dinner was on the stove, and the table set. She was astonished!

It turns out that Ralph had read an article that said wives who work full-time and had to do their own housework were too tired to have sex.

The night went well. The next day, she told her office friends all about it. "We had a great dinner. Ralph even cleaned up. He helped the kids do their homework, folded all the laundry and put it away. I really enjoyed the evening."

Monday, March 05, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is sooooo busy

This guy just turns my stomach.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has indicated he is too busy to answer letters from Democratic congressional leaders about his firing seven U.S. attorneys involved in probes of public corruption, though a lower-level Justice Department official rejected their proposals.

No comment

Must Read IMHO

Is it likely the military-industrial complex will benefit from the inevitable loss in Iraq? Quite likely if history is any indication.

This is one of those questions that has lingered ever since things started going south in Iraq, which began almost immediately after "Mission Accomplished": will there be an Iraq Syndrome similar in kind to the Vietnam Syndrome? It is question that Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ira Chernus, delves into and it comes with the very sobering consideration that, just as Reagan-led Republicans fed off the Vietnam syndrome and turned into a political operating platform to argue for more militarism and gainful imperial missions, so too might our terrible adventure of imperialism in Iraq create an equal, perhaps even greater, flight to further military buildup and international meddling.

A post that should get you thinking

If the United States were a free country, its citizens’ mail, phone calls and electronic communications never would be subject to warrantless government snooping.

If the United States were a free country, citizens’ right to buy, own and bear firearms never would be infringed, save for convicted felons.

BTW, in the comments it seems the first point was not challenged, but the second was. And that challenge was not about citizen's rights to have firearms, but challenged the assertion convicted felons should be denied such a rights.

These are people who have rarely garnered respect nor been treated with dignity. Respect and dignity, IMHO, go a long way toward helping them return to society as useful, contributing members.

The whole issue is complicated, but give them real jobs at decent pay. Work out the issues with the unions because I believe the inmates should be paid less than union workers. We can't create a climate where out of work people get sent to prison so they can be gainfully employed. But the inmates could be considered apprentices.

Yeah, I'm a bleeding heart liberal.

BTW, that image I found is apropos because most inmates happen to be black. This again points to the issue of slavery.

Must Read IMHO

Why isn't this guy all over the MSM? Why is his book less important to push than Cheney's daughter's or the latest Harry Potter?

Moazzam Begg is one British national swept up in the post-invasion frenzy in Afghanistan and found himself imprisoned in Kandahar, Bagram air force base and finally Guantanamo Bay for years before US officials summarily released him and several other British citizens who had been held without charges since 2001. His book, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar, details his time in these various hellholes.

Just curious, but does that headline help you or not? I could put that in the body of the post and use the headline from the post I'm linking to if it would be more informative.

BTW, that's a great cover for this book. It invokes isolation, desolation and despair.

Global warming is human rights issue: Nobel nominee

When is a joke not funny at all? Well we have a good example right here.

It sounds like a sick joke about global warming, with a series of horrible punch lines:

How hot is it? So hot that Inuit people around the Arctic Circle are using air conditioners for the first time. And running out of the hard-packed snow they need to build igloos. And falling through melting ice when they hunt.

These circumstances are the current results of global climate change, according to Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit born inside the Canadian Arctic, who maintains this constitutes a violation of human rights for indigenous people in low-lying areas throughout the world.

Watt-Cloutier and Martin Wagner, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, argued this case on Thursday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States in Washington.

"We weren't going to go to court," Watt-Cloutier said in a telephone interview after her testimony to the commission. "It wasn't about lawsuits and suing for damage or compensation.

"It was more about really trying to get the world to pay attention and see this as a human rights issue."

Domenici says he called fired prosecutor

This is one can of worms that seems to be getting more interesting all the time.

New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici acknowledged Sunday that he called a federal prosecutor to ask about a criminal investigation, but insisted he never pressured nor threatened his state's U.S. attorney.

The prosecutor, David Iglesias, was fired by the Justice Department in December. Iglesias says he believes he was dismissed for resisting pressure from two members of Congress before last year's election to rush indictments in a Democratic kickback investigation.

Ethics experts said Domenici's conduct may have violated Senate rules, which generally bar communications between members of Congress and federal prosecutors about ongoing criminal investigations.

Iglesias, a Republican, has said he would not name the lawmakers unless asked under oath.

A House Judiciary subcommittee subpoenaed the prosecutor last week to appear Tuesday and testify under oath. He also was scheduled to appear before a Senate committee the same day. Domenici refused last week to say if he had contacted Iglesias, insisting in a brief interview with the Associated Press, "I have no idea what he's talking about."

But in his statement Sunday, the Republican senator said he called Iglesias last year and asked "if he could tell me what was going on in that investigation and give me an idea of what time frame we were looking at.

Please note Domenici's typical first response. Typical in a Republican sort of way..."I have no idea what he's talking about."

Why don't they learn? If he had told the truth, assuming he now is, at the start this might have blown over, but now he's caught in a lie.

I'd like to be fair here. The call as described by Domenici seems perfectly harmless although I have no idea why he personally would make the call rather than dispatch an aide. But he lied...Lied...LIED! No benefit of the doubt is due. He was trying to pressure the prosecutor. I find him guilty. Can we hang him for that? I'M JOKING!

Afghan, U.S. reports on firefight differ

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about civilians' being killed in Afghanistan by coalition forces.

An explosives-rigged minivan crashed into a convoy of Marines that U.S. officials said also came under fire from militant gunmen Sunday. As many as 10 people were killed and 34 wounded as the convoy made a frenzied escape, and injured Afghans said the Americans fired on civilian cars and pedestrians as they sped away.

U.S. officials said militant gunfire may have killed or injured civilians, but Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and wounded Afghans said most of the bullets were American. Hundreds of angry Afghans protested near the blast site, denouncing the U.S. presence here.

As the Americans fled, they treated every car and person along the busy, tree-lined highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

"I saw them turning and firing in this direction, then turning and firing in that direction," Ahmed Najib, a 23-year-old hit by a bullet in his right shoulder, said of the U.S. forces. "I even saw a farmer shot by the Americans."

Lt. Col. David Accetta, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said gunmen may have fired on U.S. forces at multiple points during the escape. He said it was not yet clear how the casualties happened, though he left open the possibility that U.S. forces had shot civilians.

"It's not entirely clear right now if the people killed or wounded by gunfire were killed or wounded by coalition forces gunfire or enemy attackers gunfire," he said.

The accusation that U.S. forces killed or wounded so many Afghans was likely to cause an uproar in a country that has seen an untold number of civilians killed by international forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. A high-level delegation was appointed to investigate.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pleaded repeatedly for Western troops to take care not to harm civilians, and in December wept during a speech lamenting civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces.

"...they treated every car and person...as a potential attacker..."

No shit! What is it about self preservation people don't understand? Of course everyone would be seen as a potential attacker. That's the nature of this conflict. At any time, obviously, an attack could come from anywhere.

Foreign troops kill eight civilians after Afghan blast: police

File under: What the fuck!? I was really trying to avoid posting about this, but I can't.

Coalition troops killed eight civilians when they opened fire on a crowd after a suicide car bomb struck a military vehicle in eastern Afghanistan Sunday, provincial police said.

Elsewhere, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reported that two of its soldiers were killed Saturday in combat in the south of the country, which sees the most violence linked to a Taliban insurgency.

A large group of demonstrators gathered to protest the shooting of civilians after the bombing, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, witnesses said.

"Eight people have been killed and more than eight were injured. They were killed in coalition firing after the explosion," Nangarhar police spokesman Ghafoor Khan said.

The US-led coalition force, which operates alongside ISAF, confirmed a patrol had been struck by a suicide car bomb on the road between the provincial capital Jalalabad and the town of Torkham on the border with Pakistan.

A coalition spokesman did not have any information about casualties and would not say which troops were involved. US soldiers are deployed in the east of Afghanistan with ISAF and the smaller coalition. [emphasis mine]

"Fired on a crowd"? No, I'm not blaming the US military. They may have been involved, but no one knows right now from what I can find.

I don't actually blame the forces from any other country either. I'm sure every soldier in Afghanistan is as on edge as any other. Stretch out tours, send soldiers over and over to serve there and then throw in unbelievable heat and vicious fighters and these things are inevitable.

US probe uncovers terror financing by Arab Bank: report

And the point is?

US investigators have uncovered evidence that Arab Bank, one of the largest in the Middle East, has channeled tens of millions of dollars from wealthy Saudi Arabians to Palestinian groups that finance suicide bombers and their families, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website Saturday.

I ask because further down in the story is this.

In 2005, the bank agreed to pay the federal government 24 million dollars in fines for violating US laws aimed at preventing terrorist financing, according to the report.

This, folks, is 2007 in case you've forgotten. Are these nefarious activities still happening? Is this information of any use at all in the fight against terrorists? Is anyone placing sanctions on the people and organizations involved?

Twenty four million? Big fucking deal. Its probably reimbursable and little more than pocket change. It takes $60 million more than that to buy one F-15 fighter plane.

From what I can gather, Saudi Arabia has at least 72 F-15s. I apologize, but I don't have more accurate military hardware info.

So who's kidding who here? Just asking.Addendum: I realized I'd left this post a little open-ended. I do not mean to imply the Saudi government is behind this financing. I only referred to the F-15s to put the $24 million in perspective. The financing seems to be coming from private individuals only. Sorry if it appeared otherwise.

Don't ask. Don't tell

Must Read IMHO

Palestinian being sent into buildingahead of IDF soldiers. (via BalataRC Community Web Site)

File under: Disgusting.

During the second intifada, the Israeli civil rights group, B'Tselem, has documented four ways in which Israeli soldiers have forced Palestinian civilians to act as human shields for IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] military activity: ...

1. By forcing them to enter buildings ahead of military personnel, in order to check if they are booby-trapped, or to remove the occupants. ...

2. By forcing them to remove suspicious objects from roads used by the army ...

3. By forcing them to stand inside houses where soldiers have set up military positions, so that Palestinians will not fire at the soldiers. ...

4. By forcing them to walk in front of soldiers to shield them from gunfire, while the soldiers hold a gun behind their backs and sometimes fire over their shoulders.

These aren't recent examples, but there's no reason to think these things are not still occurring.

Must Read IMHO

It is an article on what 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians. Via Anything They Say.

The article is very informative and for those who enjoy precise language, and politicians do when it suits their purpose, it is a great education.

"Recognizing Israel's right to exist," the actual demand being made of Hamas and Palestinians, is in an entirely different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities or a simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment.

There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them.

About Me

Spent many years programming, mostly mainframes. Been in business for myself, sky dived, scuba dived, practiced karate (until the broken ribs & finger), driven a sprint car (unreal). Want the US to be great again and worry it's impossible. I consider myself a moderate because I believe most Americans don't approve of torture, do want everyone to have health care, a pension and/or a job, privacy, freedom and NO WAR. Not too radical. I use profanity like a sailor so you should leave if you are sensitive.

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